Explosive compound



UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

SILAS R. DIVINE, OF LOCH SHELDRAKE, NEW YORK, ASSIGNOR TO THE RENIIY ROCK IOW DER COMPANY, OF-NEW JERSEY.

EXPLOSIVEECOMPOUND SPECIFICATION formingpart of Letters Patent No. 289,759, dated December 4, 1883. Application filed July 23. 1883. (No specimens.)

To (ZZZ whom it may concern Be it known that I, SILAS It. DIVINE, of Loch Sheldrake, Sullivan county, State of New York, and a citizen of theUnited States, have invented an Improved Explosive Compound, of which the following is a full, clear, and exact specification. I

My invention consists in an explosive compound for use, chiefly, in blasting, composed of asolid ingredientsuch as chlorate of potashand a liquid ingredient consisting of a mixture of dead oil and nitroglycerine, which ingredients are in themselves non-explosive by percussion, and hence may be with safety handled and transported separately, and which may be combined to form the explosive by allowing the solid to absorb the liquid ingredient, substantially in the proportions and as and for the purpose set forth.

The object of my invention is to produce a compound which is susceptible to explosion, and one the strength or explosive force of which may be graded or regulated at pleasure.

The solid ingredient of my compound consists, preferably, .of crushed or powdered ehlorate of potash, although perchlorate or permanganate of potash may be thus employed. The liquid ingredient of my compoundI compose of preferably two parts of dead-oil to one part of nitroglycerine, as these proportions constitute a mixture which is capable of being handled and transported safely, and which at the same time, when combined with the solid ingredient, in the proportions named, unite most effectively therewith to form an explosive. The theoretical proportions in which the chlorate of potash and the said mixture combine most effectively, as stated, are about five parts of the chlorate of potash to one partof the mixture; but for the purpose of somewhat decreasing the sensitiveness of the compound in its practical use, it is found desirable to sometimcsdecrease the said proportions to about four parts of the chlorate of potash to one of the mixture. The exact theoretical proportions may still an efficient explosive be produced.

The proportio'ns of the deadoil and the nitrqglycerine which are indicated as preferable in the mixture constituting the liquid ingredient may be varied somewhat; but it is not desirable that the nitro-glycerine in the mixture should be decreased below about twenty per cent., as its effect in'the compound thereby apparently disappears, while it is not desirable that it should beincreased above fifty or sixty per cent., as its sensitizing eifect is then too greatly augmented for the purposes of this invention.

Other fluid hydrocarbons than dead oil which are practically non-volatile in a free state at ordinary temperatures, and which are solvents of nitro-glycerine, or such nit-r0 compounds as nitro-benzole, may be used with the nitro-glycerine to form the described mixture constituting the liquid ingredient of the compound.

WVhat I claim as my invention, and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is-

The herein-described explosive compound, composed of, chlorate of potash, constituting the solid ingredient, and dead-oil and nitro glycerine, substantially in the proportions set forth, constituting the liquid ingredient, the said solid and liquid ingredients being mechanically united, substantially in the proportions and as and for the purpose specified,

SILAS It. DIVINE.

Witnesses:

A. G. N. VERMILYA, A. S. Enron.

therefore'be varied from and 

